|
| Affiliation | Republican |
|
| Name | Kemp Hannon |
| Address | 15 Franklin Court East
Garden City, New York , United States |
| Email | hannon@senate.state.ny.us |
| Website | None |
| Born |
January 10, 1946
(78 years)
|
| Contributor | *crickets chirp* |
| Last Modifed | RBH
Oct 04, 2016 05:33pm |
| Tags |
Catholic -
|
| Info | SENATOR KEMP HANNON (R,C,I-Nassau) chairs the Senate Health Committee, and is the Senate Chair of the Health Budget Subcommittee for the Legislature's Budget Conference Committee system. He has served as Chairman of the National Conference of State Legislatures Health Committee and Chair of the Council for State Government's Committee on Suggested State Legislation, and currently serves as Co-Chair of the National Conference of State Legislatures' Task Force on the Federalization of Insurance Regulation, and as a member of the Conference's Health Forum. Senator Hannon is also a member of a national advisory panel on "Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities: The States as Catalyst for Change", a joint effort of the Heller School at Brandeis University and the Program to Eliminate Health Disparities at the Harvard School of Public Health, funded by the Commonwealth Fund.
As Chair of the Senate Health Committee, Senator Hannon has worked hard to protect public health. In 2002, he authored the Health Care Decisions Act for Persons with Mental Retardation, which allows court appointed guardians of persons with mental retardation to withhold or withdraw life sustaining treatment in order to alleviate a patient's extraordinary suffering when there is no hope of recovery. This law ensures people with mental retardation have the same rights as anyone else when it comes to health care. Leading the fight against infant mortality, he sponsored legislation that will promote advances in the research and prevention of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. He also wrote the law which creates a program to honor organ donors and their families for their life saving contributions.
In 2001, Senator Hannon authored a measure to further restrict youth access to tobacco products, by requiring retailers to display cigarettes for sale only where they are not accessible to underage customers. This was followed up in 2002 by a law encouraging cigarette retailers to train their personnel in the laws governing the sale of cigarettes and the health effects of smoking. Also in 2001, Senator Hannon ushered through the Senate legislation to set up a database to collect information about emergency room visits statewide, allowing the State, in the future, to better judge and plan for a range of illnesses, symptoms and accidents.
In 2000, the Senator created landmark legislation, the "Patient Health Information and Quality Improvement Act of 2000" (also known as "Physician Profiling"), to extend patient access to information about health care providers, and to improve the quality of patient care. The law requires the profiling of doctors, hospitals and health care plans, creates a Patient Safety Center to establish statewide safety goals and recommend best practices, and closes existing loopholes in the reporting of practitioner misconduct.
Senator Hannon is also responsible for laws recognizing the importance of medical research, preventive medicine and the treatment of diseases. These laws include measures to reform cancer registry reporting; facilitate organ donation in New York State; ease the use of the drug epinephrine to treat serious allergic reactions; and make it easier for physicians to prescribe pain medication to seriously and/or terminally ill patients. Senator Hannon also helped to create the Senate's landmark "Gen*NY*sis" program to promote biotechnology research in New York, to ensure the State will become a leader in the research and development of new life science technologies.
Senator Hannon has also fought to ensure all New Yorkers have access to quality, cost-effective care. He played an instrumental role in the adoption of the Health Care Reform Act ("HCRA") in 1996, and its subsequent iterations in 2000 and 2002. HCRA replaced New York's existing archaic, overregulated hospital reimbursement system with a deregulated system based on rates negotiated by providers and payors, and established pools of money to fund indigent care, graduate medical education, and other important health care initiatives. Senator Hannon also helped put in place in 1996 and 1997 the Child Health Plus program, and, later, Family Health Plus, two nationally recognized programs to provide health coverage for many children and adults otherwise unable to afford medical care. Due to Hannon's efforts to make quality health care more accessible, available and affordable for low income New Yorkers, enrollment in Child Health Plus has increased from approximately 90,000 in the mid 1990s to more than 500,000 at present. Meanwhile, the current enrollment in Family Health Plus of 65,000 represents an increase of more than 58,000 since January 2002.
Senator Hannon also played a vital role in expanding the State's successful Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage Program, making it the nation's most comprehensive drug coverage program for seniors. As a result, over 288,000 New Yorkers have saved an average of $1,900 annually on the cost of their medicines.
Other initiatives sponsored by Senator Hannon to promote access to quality care are: the Long Term Care Integration and Finance Act, providing greater public and private long-term care options for the elderly and chronically ill; the Managed Care Bill of Rights, protecting the interests of patients as well as provider physicians; and the law giving managed care patients the right to an independent external appeal of HMO denials of coverage for treatment.
Senator Hannon has also championed innovative legislation to promote electronic commerce and protect the privacy of individuals doing business on-line. Senator Hannon's "Electronic Signature and Records Act" of 1999 provides legal authorization for the use of electronic signatures and records. This legislation positions New York at the forefront of electronic commerce and paved the way for an analogous federal law in 2000.
Senator Hannon also sponsored the "Internet Security and Privacy Act", which prohibits any state agency that provides an interactive computer web site from collecting or disclosing personal information concerning a person using the site unless the user consents to make this information available. Such strong privacy protections will allow users to be confident their personal information is secure when they communicate with their government on-line. It will also serve as an example for private sector entities to follow in protecting the privacy of individuals who conduct business with them on-line.
Senator Hannon was elected to the State Senate in November 1989, where he initially served as Chairman of the Committee for Housing and Community Development; previously he was the Republican floor leader in the Assembly, serving as the Minority Leader Pro Tem. An alumnus of Chaminade High School, Boston College and Fordham Law School, Senator Hannon is Special Counsel to the law firm Farrell Fritz P.C. in Nassau County and is active in community and civic affairs. He resides in Garden City with his wife Bronwyn and their twin daughters, Alex and Maddie.
Standing Committee Assignments 2003: Health (Chair); Alcoholism and Drug Abuse; Codes; Corporations, Authorities and Commissions; Elections; Energy and Telecommunications; Finance; Judiciary.
[Link] |
 | BOOKS |
 |
|
| Title |
Purchase |
Contributor |
|
| Start Date |
End Date |
Type |
Title |
Contributor |
|
| Date |
Category |
Headline |
Article |
Contributor |
|
| INFORMATION LINKS |
|
|
|
